Should six-year-olds be trying to look sexy?

Im not a parent myself, so whats going on in the lives of six-year-olds isnt really on my radar. Maybe thats why I was shocked at this report. Ive also never come across this situation with my friends kids either. It should be noted that some of my married friends  even the women  have geek tendencies so an over-emphasis on looks isnt really empha...

Bad survey begets blogpost with alarming title in desperate hopes for clicks.

Most young girls said, given a choice between a doll in tight clothes and a doll in loose clothes, that they prefered the one with the tight clothes. That doesn't prove that they want to be "sexy", it proves that one doll is liked better than another.

Most certainly not - but how do you stop it when matchsticks like Posh pout and pose and are made much of in the press . All these kids see are women trying to emulate the 'stars' , who have enough money to pay for botox , plastic ops etc so they don't seem to grow any older . Their clothes are so tight that their breasts [ if they have any ] can't be constrained in their clothes .

Most certainly not - but how do you stop it when matchsticks like Posh pout and pose and are made much of in the press . All these kids see are women trying to emulate the 'stars' , who have enough money to pay for botox , plastic ops etc so they don't seem to grow any older . Their clothes are so tight that their breasts [ if they have any ] can't be constrained in their clothes .

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All one has to do is look back historically on children & trends & see it is most definitely the media they see that they are imitating. Children have not always preferred tight clothes.

ost certainly not - but how do you stop it when matchsticks like Posh pout and pose and are made much of in the press . All these kids see are women trying to emulate the 'stars' , who have enough money to pay for botox , plastic ops etc so they don't seem to grow any older . Their clothes are so tight that their breasts [ if they have any ] can't be constrained in their clothes .

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The article mentioned that the girls who were sheltered from yelevision and raised in Christian homes were more likely to prefer the doll with the tight clothes though.

Most girls as young as 6 are already beginning to think of themselves as sex objects, according to a new study of elementary school-age kids in the Midwest.

Researchers have shown in the past that women and teens think of themselves in sexually objectified terms, but the new study is the first to identify self-sexualization in young girls. The study, published online July 6 in the journal Sex Roles, also identified factors that protect girls from objectifying themselves.

Psychologists at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., used paper dolls to assess self-sexualization in 6- to 9-year-old girls. Sixty girls were shown two dolls, one dressed in tight and revealing &#8220;sexy&#8221; clothes and the other wearing a trendy but covered-up, loose outfit.

Using a different set of dolls for each question, the researchers then asked each girl to choose the doll that: looked like herself, looked how she wanted to look, was the popular girl in school, she wanted to play with.

Across-the-board, girls chose the &#8220;sexy&#8221; doll most often. The results were significant in two categories: 68 percent of the girls said the doll looked how she wanted to look, and 72 percent said she was more popular than the non-sexy doll.

&#8220;It&#8217;s very possible that girls wanted to look like the sexy doll because they believe sexiness leads to popularity, which comes with many social advantages,&#8221; explained lead researcher Christy Starr, who was particularly surprised at how many 6- to 7-year-old girls chose the sexualized doll as their ideal self&#8230;.

&#8230;The APA report, which inspired the new study, cited widespread sexualization of women in popular culture. &#8220;In study after study, findings have indicated that women more often than men are portrayed in a sexual manner &#8230; and are objectified,&#8221; the APA authors wrote. &#8220;These are the models of femininity presented for young girls to study and emulate.&#8221;

The authors cited examples like &#8220;advertisements (e.g. the Sketchers naughty and nice ad that featured Christina Aguilera dressed as a schoolgirl in pigtails, with her shirt unbuttoned, licking a lollipop), dolls (e.g. Bratz dolls dressed in sexualized clothing such as miniskirts, fishnet stockings and feather boas), clothing (e.g. thong underwear sized for 7- to 10-year-olds, some printed with slogans such as &#8216;wink wink&#8217, and television programs (e.g. a televised fashion show in which adult models in lingerie were presented as young girls).&#8221; Parents, teachers and peers were also cited as influencing girls&#8217; sexualized identities.
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Media consumption alone didn&#8217;t influence girls to prefer the sexy doll. But girls who watched a lot of TV and movies and who had mothers who reported self-objectifying tendencies, such as worrying about their clothes and appearance many times a day, in the study were more likely to say the sexy doll was popular.

The authors suggest that the media or moms who sexualize women may predispose girls toward objectifying themselves; then, the other factor (mom or media) reinforces the messages, amplifying the effect. On the other hand, mothers who reported often using TV and movies as teaching moments about bad behaviors and unrealistic scenarios were much less likely to have daughters who said they looked like the sexy doll. The power of maternal instruction during media viewing may explain why every additional hour of TV- or movie-watching actually decreased the odds by 7 percent that a girl would choose the sexy doll as popular, Starr said. &#8220;As maternal TV instruction served as a protective factor for sexualization, it&#8217;s possible that higher media usage simply allowed for more instruction.&#8221;

Mothers&#8217; religious beliefs also emerged as an important factor in how girls see themselves. Girls who consumed a lot of media but who had religious mothers were protected against self-sexualizing, perhaps because these moms &#8220;may be more likely to model higher body-esteem and communicate values such as modesty,&#8221; the authors wrote, which could mitigate the images portrayed on TV or in the movies. [8 Ways Religion Impacts Your Life]

However, girls who didn&#8217;t consume a lot of media but who had religious mothers were much more likely to say they wanted to look like the sexy doll. &#8220;This pattern of results may reflect a case of &#8216;forbidden fruit&#8217; or reactance, whereby young girls who are overprotected from the perceived ills of media by highly religious parents &#8230; begin to idealize the forbidden due to their underexposure,&#8221; the authors wrote. Another possibility is that mothers of girls who displayed sexualized attitudes and behaviors had responded by restricting the amount of TV and movies their daughters could watch. Regardless, the authors underlined, &#8220;low media consumption is not a silver bullet&#8221; against early self-sexualization in girls.
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I will take your word for it. The world has changed for the worse. Frankly I feel sorry for kids now days. Both girls and boys.

Take care Michie

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People are not letting kids be kids. They do not let kids set he standards anymore. The media does because it is a bilion dollar business.

It's slowly evolved to adults setting the standards.

The media used to have kids think tanks where they would pinpoint a trend or a game at that moment. Take off from there. Now it is the opposite. Kids are fed what the media gives them & the poor kids go from there setting their values & aspirations from that.

Americans don't have a whole lot of smut in their papers. Entertainment news seldom makes the front page, except in tabloids (which are wholly serate from legitimate newspapers in the US) which the aforementioned type of home would not have in it anyway.

Americans don't have a whole lot of smut in their papers. Entertainment news seldom makes the front page, except in tabloids (which are wholly serate from legitimate newspapers in the US) which the aforementioned type of home would not have in it anyway.

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Surely you jest.

Papers have a lot of smut in the papers along with entertainment & fashion news.

When we had an agent for our daughter - age 8 - a lot of Hollyweirdo-ism is - dont discipline a child. Let the child be who they are....[and they spoil them like crazy.]
Let them express themselves - let them run around and so forth. Now this was the general speech they gave to all the ppl who's children were chosen for an agency. [Our girl was and no there was no costs]

Basically - the come later druggy child stars - come from the lack of adult supervision - and discipline. Being given whatever they want - because they are a 'star'.
Being told to act sexy - in some scenes of a movie - or whatever because the audience eats it up.

Its society - its the demands of society.

And one time we put our girl in a pageant - at the mall. It was simple. She was waving - smiling - and acting nice. She lost however; because the other girl was sashaying and acting sexy at age - gulp - 4.
It was gross. And i never let her do another try out. I was clueless - and toddlers and tiaras is really how it is in that world.

Im not a parent myself, so whats going on in the lives of six-year-olds isnt really on my radar. Maybe thats why I was shocked at this report. Ive also never come across this situation with my friends kids either. It should be noted that some of my married friends  even the women  have geek tendencies so an over-emphasis on looks isnt really empha...